Review #22: Captain Sonar

# of Players: 2-8
Playtime: 30-60 Minutes

Core Mechanic: Deduction

Theme: Submarine
Type: Party

Weight: Medium

Year: 2016

Rating: 8*

In 2016, when it came to party games, this was the one that I could not stop hearing about. The thought of one of my childhood games, Battleship, turned into real-time mayhem sounded amazing, but the only problem is that the game works best with eight players, which would be really difficult to accomplish considering the size of my regular gaming groups. However, I was determined to get this played, so I eventually was able to find a few people to do so.

In this game, you have two teams, ideally with four players each. The two teams will be sitting across from each other with a divider to separate them down the middle. The goal of each team is to locate the opponent’s submarine and sink it. Each team is made up of four roles, so you can see why eight people are ideal because if you have less, players will need to double up on the responsibility, which can lead to some confusion and potentially slow down the game. Players with identical roles will be sitting across from each other.

Each team has a captain who is the leader of their respective teams. The Captain will announce the direction his or her submarine will be traveling in and mark it down on his or her map, which has certain rules such as not crossing land and not crossing a previously traveled path. Each team will also have a Radio Operator sitting next to the Captain. Their role is to listen to the opposing Captain to trace the enemy’s route and try to figure out where the enemy's submarine is.

The third role is the First Mate, who will have to choose which gauge to fill to activate either weapon systems, detection systems, or special systems which will be used to locate, destroy, or evade the enemy submarine. The First Mate also keeps track of damage his or her submarine has taken. Finally, the Engineer will be keeping track of breakdowns that are occurring due to the stress of battle, which may either disable the previously mentioned systems or even result in damage to the submarine. To repair these breakdowns, or if the Captain can no longer move the submarine, the submarine must surface, announcing its position to the enemy and having to complete a certain task before it can dive again. This creates an intense chase element when it occurs as one team frantically tries to hunt down their recently surfaced opponent and the other desperately tries to mask their movement to escape.

There are two ways to play this game - turn-by-turn, where each team announces their direction intention one after the other, or the intended real-time version, which is fun madness.  I can definitely see the potential in this game and how fun it can be, but it fell flat with my game normal group because of there was a lot of confusion about what was going on.  First, I think more plays would help as people learn how to play their roles.  Second, we did not have enough people, so a couple people had to double up on roles which added to the chaos.  Finally, and maybe most importantly, we made the mistake of not saying “Head” before our direction, which then made it very difficult to determine which direction we actually were going or if we were just discussing.

However, I was eventually able to play it at SHUX 2017 in a convention setting with seven other people and it was a very rewarding but also draining experience. As the captain, I was able to lead our team to victory and experienced the full tension that this game creates, especially once a sub has been found and damaged. It was so intense though that I decided to sit out the second game, probably a first for me! Anyway, this play demonstrated how strong the game was, but also showed that the experience really depends upon the group of people playing as it is not a traditional party game.

This puts this game in a difficult position in terms of which collection it belongs to. Because many party games are light, it would be a good fit as a party game for a Middleweight or even Heavyweight collection. Unfortunately, this added weight means that it probably isn't an essential game, but I think it has a place in a Collector collection. This truly is an innovative and unique game, even if it isn't for everyone. Easily one of the best party games, or perhaps convention games, around.